Thanks Dave for your thoughts, I will try to address them, they are good questions I should have included in my first post.
First, there is clearly no runoff of any kind that has any contains cow manure. In fact, the ponds are elevated on three side against ANY runoff. Perhaps he did not build it in an ideal fashion, but again he knew I would be filling it with well water. The one side that can receive any runoff in from my lawn, has never even had the ground worked or had any livestock on it at any point.
As a note, I also pump in the winter on occasion to break a hole in the ice if the pond stays frozen over to long, and although the leak slows way down in the winter, it never completely stops so I still add in the winter, just not as often or as much. And although the water does clear up a lot in the winter, it has never been even close to what it was before in my ignorance I threw bucket after bucket of the concentrated stuff into the pond, only to discover it should have been small CUPS, not large buckets. The incredible speed and the deep, nearly pea soup color that developed those 6 years ago has never left.
Of course even I figured out not to try that stunt again. The fishing is kinda a situation where if your are using lures, you just have to cast something very bright, shiny, etc in this pond, anything else just cannot be detected. The poor starving bass are so hungry they are often caught by those trying to catch catfish on the very bottom with large and small baits of all types.
The well water...hummm. Now that is something I never even thought of getting tested along with the pond water. I will do that. I already know it must be nearly devoid of any real oxygen content, at least from all the articles in PB, a well pushing out water from that depth should not have much, if any. Thanks for that tip, a good one, and I will pursue that. In fact, the fish hatchery that delivers fish to all the local farmers instructs us to bring containers with the water from the pond the fish are going in and to NEVER use well water as it is almost entire devoid of oxygen.
However, it is unlikely that it is the suspect. As I mentioned, I had the well dug at the same time as the new pond was constructed, so for the first year, maybe 1.5 ( remember that snail like memory
both ponds ( one pond really I guess, I will try to attach some pics as soon as I read up today on how to do that, size limit, etc ) were filled and maintained by the well water, and that entire time they were so pretty they could have made a magazine cover it seems.
I still keep returning to the fact I had such beautiful, clear, water ( to clear I thought, I now know they needed just a few ounces, if anything ) and by tossing out 15 or more POUNDS rather than the required same number only in OUNCES of the highly concentrated fertilizer, I watched that poor pond turn to a color so green and full of suspended green sediment ( appears to be very small particles of algae ) so amazingly fast it appeared to begin before I could even pack things up! The very next day the pond began taking on a green tint. I only took three days to complete the task, I had effectively turned my pond into a haven for small fish, tons to eat, predators have zero chance of finding them, so for the spawns and the FHM, this was a great thing! Turtle seem to love it also.....
And, I suppose as long as I insist on throwing that expensive Purina 600 and 500 from both feeders, it is still a good thing for the rest of the fish, who I doubt even bother to hunt under the surface much, they just wait for the dinner bell, and are getting quite fat on that Aquamax, the BG are getting even bigger as we hopped, the other fish have layers of fat on them when they are cleaned that resembles a fat deer being skinned!
My concerns actually lie with what will happen to me since I have not been able to aerate ( hopefully next year ) and water so dense when I have these terrible 100+ days like we are, week after week, and then get 3 days or so in a row of clouds, am I in store for a kill, or is the water being pumped in saving me? The well water is very cool, as it should be at that depth, crystal clear, and has some find sand in it if you fill a glass with it, so clear it looks to be empty, however, closer inspection will reveal a small amount of what appears to be white sand not unlike that found on a beach. The folks that installed the pump all immediately drank a gallon of it, thirsty guys after nearly a week of hard work filled with problems ( naturally ) but watching them trying untested water like that....well, I actually made it a point to casually call them a week latter for some obscure reason, I actually inquired as to if any of them had croaked unexpectedly...it was out first sign to my wife and I that " well..we are DEFINITELY not in California anymore "
I doubt that it is the source of the ongoing problem, but I will certainly have it checked out as you suggest. I pumped in millions of gallons of the stuff that first 18 months and the ponds remained clear and beautiful, it took only a day to begin an irreversible change I did with a 50X to large dose of fertilizer.
I realize that the initial does has long since worn off so to speak, but I THINK what happens is that the first year this massive algae bloom was created, each year the conditions were ideal to simply reestablish it each spring. After I put in half a million gallons of water, it actually gets a little better for a few days, but after the flow of water stops and the water sits very still baking in the immense heat....well, I think back to when I was a kid and some of the pools of water we tried to swim in, or even if we left water in a glass jug in the sun to long, pretty much the same thing always happened.
I really think it is that simple, I had a massive, extremely thick algae bloom and based on the amount of sun the ponds receive, the lack of any wave action, the total lack of any underwater vegetation of any type, lots of factors make for the "perfect storm" to come up with a pretty green pond. I am looking at the jars I filled with the pond water a few weeks ago, I just shook them up and now they look like they did when I first drew the water, all the sediment that had finally settled after a week, settled on the bottom and is green and appears to be some form of algae. After shaking them, the jars are green again, lots and lots of floating green debris.
But I can no longer trust my judgement in most matters, which is distressing to me, that was the one thing that got me through my life so well, helped me in a fantastic career, tough choices in life, etc. But, between the pain and the meds I seem to have lost my confidence in my own judgement, and have to turn to others for help and advice, when for the vast majority of my life, I was the the one that was in the position of doing that, so it has come full circle.
I am ok with that. Pain, meds, confusion, mistakes, embarrassment, and more, the last 11 years will not improve, and I expect it to deteriorate at the same rate it has been. And yet, that is just fine!
You see, on the rare occasion ( and it is indeed rare ) that I ever find myself feeling blue over my situation and the "why me" kicks in, which, by the way, is usually only triggered by an extremely intense pain day that the daily dose of EIGHT Dilaudid [ 8mg each all taken at once each day at noon, enough to cause most folks extreme distress and a trip to the ER ] will not even touch, I have a neat little trick that not only works for me, I used to give it as advice to the many that came to me in my profession seeking some form of help with all kinds of problems. Worked very well for them, and when it was my turn to need some of the same, what better thing than to try some of your own advice, and it works just as well for me as them.
I simply turn on the news for 30 minutes. Doesn't really matter what station, just the world news. Doesn't really matter what night either. Cause in the span of that 30 minutes, I will see up to half a million people that have things SO much worse than me they would trade spots no questions asked and think they were kings of the world in my place! I only have to see the horrible misery that so many go through all over the world, including right here at home ( it might even be a report on terminal cancer patients, etc ) to realize that I can still at least walk, and although I could not walk away from that wreck and spent months in the hospital and 8 months in bed after that without getting out, that is a small price indeed for my life! I shouda croaked in that wreck, it was spectacular, and since I assumed it was all over, I enjoyed the 160' plunge off the side of the road into the canyon as long as the ride lasted, let out the rebel yell, went out in style, or so I thought. Never passed out. Even managed to land the car perfectly, albeit destroyed after that jump of 160' and over 40 feet down into a gulch.
But realizing that so many, have it so much worse, and yet they manage, and even do so with a smile on their face in many cases, is a very humbling experience for me, and immediately snaps me out of any slump I might be in, so I am just very happy to be able to see these flowers growing from the top down....not the roots up!!
Again, thanks to all, I so appreciate the kindness and patience you continue to show me, especially bothering to read and respond to the dime store novels I am writing
